A Delaware County man has been arrested and charged with murder in the beating death of an elderly Landsdowne man who had befriended him and made him executor and sole beneficiary of his will.
John Joe Thomas, 28, of the first block of Sunshine Road in Upper Darby, allegedly told police he killed Murray Joseph Seidman, 70, because the older man had made sexual advances and that the Old Testament spelled out stoning as the punishment for homosexuality.
"I stoned Murray with a rock in a sock," Thomas said to police, according to court documents.
Thomas, who was charged with murder, was silent as he was led past photographers this morning.
According to the court documents, Thomas called police Seidman's apartment on Jan. 12 and they found Thomas sitting in the hallway crying: "I'm not going down there again, there is too much blood."
Police found Seidman in his apartment face down. The medical examiner later ruled Seidman died as a result of blunt force trauma at least five days before being discovered.
Neighbors described Seidman as a friendly soul who liked to eat out, watch movies, and bowl. He worked in the laundry of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital for 40 years until he retired. Hospital officials said he was well liked by his coworkers and a "landmark" at the institution.
It was at the hospital where Seidman met and befriended Thomas, according to neighbors. The young man and Seidman were often seen together grocery shopping and going to church.
Lansdowne police Chief Daniel Kortan said the break in the investigation came when Thomas allegedly told a witness he beat an older man to death.
"I killed a man," Thomas allegedly told the witness. He then described how he placed batteries and rocks in a sock, and hit Seidman in the head at least 10 times. Thomas then returned to Seidman's apartment several days later and called police, saying he had discovered the body, according to court documents.
When police interviewed Thomas on Wednesday he said Seidman had been making advances toward him over a period of time. Thomas said he read in the Old Testament that homosexuals should be stoned in certain situations.
Admittedly this man was probably mentally unstable. Never the less it is always sad to see where a shallow, literalist reading of the Bible can lead.
Bradlee Dean, founder of the very weird You Can Run, But You Cannot Hide Ministries, has gotten in hot water for insinuating that Muslims are being more moral than Christians by calling for the execution of homosexuals. Now he's attempting to sue Rachel Maddow for airing his comments on national television. He claims that he didn't really mean what he said and that Maddow is committing slander against him.
So did Maddow take his words out of context? Well listen to the whole segment and decide for yourself...
And in case you're still not convinced this man is a bigot, check out his endorsement of Bryan Fischer and Scott Lively's Holocaust revisionism. (And by the way, if Scott Lively is just a lone fringe figure as some conservatives claim, why is he so often cited by high profile figures like Fischer?)
And of course there's the audio of him pining after the good 'ol days when homosexuals where castrated and hung.
And lest you think that this man is just some lone, fringe wacko keep in mind that Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann has repeatedly supported Dean and his "ministry". And she's not alone, Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer came under fire for donating money to Dean's organization as well. Emmer's response to the criticism? "I think they're good people." Good people indeed...
I've argued here before that all ex-gay ministries really change is behavior and identification, not a person's core sexual orientation. Well now Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, has himself said the same thing. In the Washington Update feature over at frc.org Perkins says the following (emphasis mine):
Journalists' "fact-checking" services can be just as prone to bias and factual error as the politicians they're checking. PolitiFact analyzed former Gov. Tim Pawlenty's recent statements on the origins of homosexuality. Meet the Press host David Gregory had asked: "Is being gay a choice?" Pawlenty began his response by saying, "Well, the science in that regard is in dispute." PolitiFact rated that lone sentence as "false." But the "choice" question is meaningless unless you also define what you mean by "gay." Same-sex attraction is not a choice, but homosexual conduct and homosexual self-identification are choices. Pawlenty ignored the silly "choice" question and answered the more relevant one--what causes homosexuality?--accurately. He went on to say, "There's no scientific conclusion that [homosexuality is] genetic." PolitiFact rated this statement "mostly true"--but grudgingly.
Most of their "analysis" was devoted to explaining that if Pawlenty had said it's not "biological" (rather than "genetic") it would have been false. They quote the American Psychological Association's research on "possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social and cultural influences" and concede, "no findings . . . permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation . . . is determined by any particular factor." Pawlenty is right. And PolitiFact's contradictory conclusion that "scientists do believe that sexual orientation is caused by biology" is wrong.
Of course Perkins' claim that scientists do not believe that sexual orientation is caused by biology is patently false. It is true that the scientific community is still unsure as to exactly which factors cause homosexuality (much as they are still unsure about what factors cause left-handedness) and to what extent those various factors effect sexual orientation relative to one another. But there is little disagreement over the fact that biological factors do indeed play a significant role. Studies of fraternal birth order, gay twins and brain structure have all indicated the significant likelihood of strong biological factors in the development of homosexuality. Of course Perkins et. al. won't be admitting that any time soon...
When Ann Coulter speaks of wanting a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy for all of society what she is really asking is for gay men and women to return to the closet. This is, I think, the desire of many conservatives who "tolerate" gay people but say they don't want our "agenda" shoved down their throats. What they really mean is, "we won't bash you so long as you stay in the closet." This kind of intolerance is inexcusable.
This is bizarre, to say the least. And while it's important to keep on the story, given Revrend Long's anti-gay preaching, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of outing a sexual abuse victim who clearly wanted to remain anonymous.
Reverand Emily C. Heath over at Bilerico has a wonderful piece about the anti-faith bigotry of some in the queer community.
Monday morning my latest post was published on Bilerico. The piece which, while not an attempt to evangelize or impose my faith on anyone, dealt with religion. Just as every post dealing with religion that I've placed on this site, the comments were immediately not just negative, but filled with hatred and vulgarity directed towards my faith.
This is the reality of what it means to be a queer person of faith. You get slammed from all sides.
I don't really mind. If I lost sleep over every hateful comment I heard in my life I'd be walking around comatose. But what is always ironic to me is how much anti-gay Christians and the rabid anti-faith folks have in common. The narrowness of world views, the inability to tolerate beliefs different than their own, the stereotyping of all members of a given group, the quickness with which both groups resort to name calling all point to a simple truth: they are all fundamentalists.
I'm sure the rabidly anti-faith folks don't think that label applies to them, but it does. The reality is that most atheists do not typically berate people of faith, call them names, or dismiss them as brainless. Most that I know are live and let live types. My atheist friends and I make no attempts to convert one another and are able to discuss our different beliefs in calm, respectful ways.
They are not the people I'm talking about here. Who I am talking about are the LGBT people who engage in behavior that, if it were directed at any other group, would rightfully be identified as bigoted and bullying.
In the late 90's Corpus Christi, a passion play taking place in modern Texas that depicts Jesus and his Disciples as gay, stirred up quite a bit of controversy. I'm sympathetic to those who are offended by anything that would portray Jesus having a sexual relationship (such as Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ), but to my knowledge Corpus Christi never depicts Christ as having any sexual relationships himself. Rather it does the unthinkable by showing the Lord overseeing a gay marriage ceremony between two apostles.
Now there is a documentary about the making of the play coming this year, which will surely create more controversy.
Of course the apostles were not actually gay (so far as we know at least), but it's not as if the Gospel story hasn't been re-purposed before, told with any number of twists on the traditional story. So why is this particular re-imagining so blasphemous?
